Rental yields still on the up

A website specialising in the letting industry reveals that a survey carried out on landlords reveals that rental income is at a two year high as the demand for private housing booms.

FindaProperty.com has produced figures showing that rental yields for the third quarter of the year have, on average, gone up by almost 4.7 %. The figure reflects the amount of prospective tenants searching for good accommodation and is the best increase for buy-to-let investors since October 2008.

The average rent for a property in the UK now stands at £851, a rise of 5.8% since the start of the year and in monetary terms means that on average landlords are receiving £47 a month more than they did at the beginning of the year. To many landlords this increase will go a long way to paying for their landlord insurance.

As always the report showed a wide difference region by region. London landlords saw their rents climb by over 5% while landlords in the South-East and South-West achieved a rise about half of that. Five areas of the country actually experienced a drop in the amount of rent landlords were yielding.

Residential landlords in Scotland and Wales suffered quite badly as landlords in both regions had to slash their rents by around 3%.

In the short term landlords across the country are still confident that rental yields will continue to increase, although those in the provinces will not be expecting to see growth like that in the capital. From January this year the average rental yield in London has now gone up by an amazing 13%. This translates into an average rental income increase of £208 with the final quarter of 2010 yet to come